The present invention is broadly concerned with information transfer through magnetic recording and utilizing an x, y matrix of solenoids to generate magnetic pulses upon a point to point basis from programmed electrical signals said pulses resulting in the production of visible displays, and in particular displays in color, and in register, on a magnetochemical film layer.
Magnetochemistry is the utilization of magnetic field forces to trigger spontaneous chemical reactions and the background of this art is to be found prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,281 669, 3,512,169, 3,882,507, 3,911,552, 3,922,687 and 4,206,866.
The last four of the above referenced patents disclose and describe the structure of high sensitivity magnetochemical particles in which two, plated, pre-oriented magnetic metal spheres are joined with their directions of orientation in parallel relation, and such that, when placed in a suitable chemical environment and subjected to a magnetic field, opposing forces are generated between the spheres causing them to spring apart and thereby initiate a chemical reaction between the exposed junction of the spheres and a surrounding chemical environment. The referenced patents further teach that these triggering elements can be incorporated into colorless but color forming liquids suspended in droplet form within a resin medium, and that this resin medium containing the droplets can be coated upon a support material, and by subjecting the coated material to an appropriate magnetic field, visual patterns in color are produced.
The above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,507 discloses and teaches the broad concept of positioning and aligning plated magnetic metal spheres so that their preferred directions of orientation for magnetic field propagation are parallel, and while so positioned abrading small surface areas of the spheres, then bonding the two spheres together to provide discrete pairs of such tiny magnetic metal spheres as illustrated by FIGS. 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,866 describes an improvement and a simplification of the previously known technique for preparing joined pairs of demagnetized magnetic metal spheres as disclosed and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,507; and whereby it is possible to prepare such joined pairs of spheres on a continuous mass production basis.
There are several magnetic field sources useful in exposing, recording, printing, writing or otherwise transferring magnetic information to become visible upon the magnetochemical surface including permanent magnets, magnetic recording heads, magnetic field concentrating helix sweeping over a magnetizable electromagnet bar, solenoids, directionally oriented magnetic tape and others known in the art and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,507 and in particular column 12, lines 46 through 68; column 13, lines 1 through 68; and column 14, lines 1 and 2.
The state of the art direct recording techniques, require mechanical motion and introduce primary color image registration problems in transferring magnetic field information to a surface, as in page writing or printing, either in creating the interface or in frictional exposure to a magnetic field generating instrument.